Mexico Military Generals Arrested Over Missing Students

Mexican authorities have arrested a retired general and three other members of the army for alleged connection to the disappearance of 43 students in southern Mexico in 2014, the government announced Thursday.

Assistant Public Safety Secretary Ricardo Mejia said that among those arrested was the former officer who commanded the army base in the Guerrero state city of Iguala in September 2014, when the students from a radical teacher’s college were abducted.

Mejía said a fourth arrest was expected soon, and later a government official with knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter confirmed that another member of the army had been arrested.

Mejía did not give names of those arrested, but the commander of the Iguala base at that time was José Rodríguez Pérez, then a colonel.

Barely a year after the students’ disappearances and with the missing students’ families already raising suspicions about military involvement and demanding access to the base, Rodríguez was promoted to brigadier general.

The government official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed that Rodríguez was arrested and said he was being held at a military installation.

The source would say about the others arrested only that two were officers and the third was an enlisted soldier.